A monthly survey of supply managers shows that Minnesota’s business conditions improved in December, and the outlook for the state is positive for the first half of 2013.

Minnesota’s index jumped to 57.2 in December compared with 48.4 in November. An index number greater than 50 indicates economic expansion in the coming three to six months.

One contributor to the improved outlook has been Minnesota’s unemployment rate of 5.7 percent, which is well below the national rate of 7.7 percent, said Ernie Goss, a professor at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., who compiles the index.

In the past year, Minnesota’s labor force has shrunk by 7,000 workers, which has contributed to the decline in unemployment. That’s because as people drop out of the labor force, they cease to be counted as officially unemployed. But there have been real job gains as well.

“Since the national economic recovery began in July 2009, Minnesota has added more than 9,000 manufacturing jobs,” Goss said. “Our surveys over the past several months point to positive job and economic growth for the first half of 2013.”

The Mid-America Business Conditions Index, which surveys supply managers across nine states, found a less optimistic picture for the broader region. In the nine-state region as a whole, the index number for December was 49.5, up slightly from November’s 48.0. While the index continues to indicate no growth or slow growth, the results don’t point to a recession, Goss said.

Also Wednesday, the monthly survey from the Institute for Supply Management showed that manufacturing expanded nationwide in December, following one month of contraction. The index number rose to 50.7, following November’s 49.5. Gains in manufacturing employment helped boost the index number.

The reversal of the November trend is the main positive out of the December data, said Josh Bushard, a partner with consulting firm Grant Thornton in Minneapolis, which follows the manufacturing sector. With all the anxiety that U.S. businesses were feeling about the looming fiscal cliff, December’s surveys could have produced negative news, he said.

“But it comes off as a pretty solid month,” he said.

In the institute’s results, the number of manufacturers who have positive outlooks versus negative outlooks remain mixed, Bushard said. But the manufacturers he works with say business is stable to growing, and “nobody’s talking of revenue declines.”

The December index numbers support findings from a Grant Thornton survey of chief financial officers, Bushard said. The semiannual results of that survey released last month showed that about 70 percent of CFOs believed the U.S. economy would improve or remain stable in the next six months.

In the Mid-America Survey, Minnesota, North Dakota and Oklahoma were the only states of the nine surveyed by Goss to outperform the nation in terms of nonfarm job growth. “Our survey indicates the (broader) region will add few jobs in the next three to six months,” Goss said. The other six states surveyed are South Dakota, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Arkansas.

North Dakota, which is in the midst of an oil boom in its western counties, had an index of 50.9 in December, down from 58.1 in November. While North Dakota continues to have the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, growth is being restrained by shortages of labor and housing, Goss said.

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